Written by Kathleen Perley, Vice President of Marketing & Business Development

Yahoo! recently purchased the blogging and social site, Tumblr for $1.1 billion.  Tumblr and Yahoo! have made it clear that there will be no major changes to Tumblr down to the coloring of the site. “We’re not turning purple,” said David Karp, Tumblr’s founder and CEO.  Changes, however, are coming to Tumblr in the form of its dashboard.

The changes to the dashboard were to make reblogging easier and more streamlined for users.  These changes also will increase the social part of Tumblr, which is a big deal for Yahoo! since they’re hoping this merger will make their site more appealing to  younger generations.

Automotive Search Engine Optimization Through Tumblr

Tumblr previously had a bad reputation for search engine optimization (SEO) and its inability to aid in your Google organic searches.  However, now with the merger between the two companies, the value in Tumblr for the automotive industry has gone up.

Here are some tips on how to improve your Tumblr automotive search engine optimization:

• Keywords are just as important when posting on Tumblr as they are when you post on your website.
• Tumblr is an easy way to increase backlinking to your blog and/or dealership.
• Your posts’ titles should contain the relevant keywords as well as headings throughout your text.
• Keywords should also appear in your URL if possible.

In the ever-changing world of automotive digital marketing, Tumblr’s recent buy out makes it a platform to watch.  Utilizing your dealership’s social media to also increase your Google rankings can save time and money.

 Written by Jim Flint, President & Founder

Yesterday, Local Search Group’s work with Honda Cars of Katy was featured in Automotive News. Local Search Group handles online automotive marketing for the Houston area dealership and has made a big impact on its sales and revenue with automotive Facebook ads.

With the help of Facebook’s new targeting capabilities, Local Search Group was able to create various innovative automotive Facebook advertising campaigns for Honda Cars of Katy. One campaign that saw tremendous success was designed for professionals in the healthcare industry. The dealership posted Facebook ads that offered incentives to employees at each of the two nearby major medical centers, which each employ about 3500 people.

In a similar six-week campaign targeting the energy professionals in the area, Honda Cars of Katy saw a closing ratio of 33% on all dealership leads generated by the campaign, ultimately resulting in 16 units sold. With the help of Local Search Group, the dealership also successfully ran automotive Facebook ad campaigns targeted to new college grads and mothers in addition to ads incentivizing visits to the dealership’s service drive.

At Local Search Group, we pride ourselves on being your “non-vendor” vendor for automotive digital marketing. Our business was created after seeing a need firsthand in the automotive retail space. With our industry knowledge, our expertise in social media advertising, and the proven success we’ve helped create for Honda Cars of Katy and other automotive retail stores across the country, Local Search Group is the perfect automotive digital marketing partner.

To read the full article in Automotive News, click here.

To learn about Facebook’s new ad campaigns, download our free webinar on automotive Facebook ads.

 Written by Jim Flint, President & Founder

Pinterest has quickly become a household name and is climbing the ranks among automotive social media giants.  It is currently the third most popular social network with more than 12 million users in the United States.  Pinterest is unique because of its ability to connect brands with users more effectively than Facebook and Twitter.  According to Bizrate, over 69% of online customers purchase items through Pinterest or visit the social network for inspiration on future purchases.

To further illustrate Pinterest’s influence, only 24% of Facebook users use the site to associate with retailers or brands as opposed to 43% of Pinterest users.  Engaging with customers and creating brand loyalty through Pinterest is as easy as back linking a photo.

How to Use Pinterest in Your Dealership

Vehicle manufacturers are currently using a new way to connect with consumers through their Pinterest boards.  The Puzzle Photo Contest is a fun, competitive way to get customers involved with your brand and your boards by allowing them to build their own vehicle.  The contest also helps increase the dealership’s Pinterest search engine optimization (SEO) power.

Peugeot got into the competition by scattering photos throughout their website and social media outlets, gaining likes and followers along the way, to recreate their vehicles through Pinterest boards.

How Pinterest contests work:

1. A customer must create a board with the title of the contest, such as “Summer Savings”.
2. They must follow the dealership’s boards on Pinterest.
3. The dealership should pin 10 images from its website and/or social media site to the contest board and include the URL to the appropriate landing page.
4. Participants must then email the dealership with the link to the completed board in order to enter the contest.

Dealers can drive traffic not only to their dealership webpage, but also to their service drive. Whether dealerships want to offer a free oil change and tune-up or simply no money down on a new vehicle purchase, the interactivity with boards on Pinterest is an effective way to increase traffic and drive leads to your door.

 Written by Kathleen Perley, Vice President of Marketing & Business Development

Don’t miss Jim Flint’s presentation “Avoiding the Automotive Bermuda Triangle of Your Advertising Budget” today, May 16, at 1:00PM.  His workshop for Automotive Boot Camp identifies key components of the automotive triangle to help navigate your dealership’s operations and maximize profits. Click -here- to download his presentation.

 Written by Kathleen Perley, Vice President of Marketing & Business Development

Jim Flint will be presenting Big Data for Dealers at this year’s 14th Digital Dealer. His session is scheduled for 2:30 PM today, and will include methods to maximize your dealership’s operations and automotive digital marketing.  To download his presentation, click here.

 Written by Kathleen Perley, Vice President of Marketing & Business Development

The Super Bowl is arguably the biggest event in the United States with over 108 million viewers and advertisers paying approximately $3.5 billion for a 30-second slot.  That size of an audience is available every single day on Facebook, which has over 125 million users.  The ability to reach a large consumer base on Facebook as well as narrowly target your ideal shopper, utilizing Facebook’s new Power Editor ad campaigns are an obvious choice for dealers looking to get ahead.

With the addition of partner categories, including data from Polk Automotive, Facebook’s Power Editor changes automotive digital marketing with the ability to specifically target car buyers and build a perfect ad relevant for them.  There are four main areas where Power Editor provides clear benefits for dealers:

1. Leasing

Target consumers interested in leasing a vehicle.  Not only can you focus on a customer that is in the market to lease a vehicle, you can pinpoint a potential buyer interested in leasing by body style, make/model and location.

2. Conquest

With conquest campaigns, a Honda dealership, for example, can target car buyers who are interested in a Toyota. These campaigns can show potential Camry buyers an ad of a Honda Civic.  Power Editor also can come in handy for used car sales.  If you have a large used non-core inventory, the dealership can target car buyers that are interested in those vehicles.  Just make sure you take those consumers to the corresponding vehicle display page.

3. Trade-Ins

Power Editor can be used to increase floor traffic and maximize sales volume. Entice car owners with vehicles of four to six years to see what their car is worth as a trade-in at your dealership. Furthermore, Power Editor can aid you in searching for the perfect trade-in for your dealership.  If you’re in a more urban area and your dealership sells more fuel-efficient cars, you can target car owners based on body style including compact cars as well as hybrid/alternative fuel vehicles.  These campaigns help stock your used inventory to meet your unique market’s demand.

4. Service Drive

Dealerships have the capability to load their contact database into Power Editor to target those customers.  Loading in a list of recent car buyers and sending them ads for service reminders is a great way to bring in additional revenue per vehicle sold, but also maintain customer loyalty.

While you might lose a shopper to a competing dealership, you can win the war by converting them into lifelong service customers and potential future buyers. Target consumers who bought your make in the last 36 months with ads reminding them to keep their car running like new with regular oil changes.

Mass media has lost its mass.  Successful marketing campaigns deliver relevant and unique messages to different target audiences.  Facebook’s new Power Editor allows dealers the ability to reach these consumers unlike any other medium.  Get ahead of your competition during these BIG, summer selling months with Facebook advertising.

Watch Jim’s webinar on how dealers can use Facebook’s new advertising campaigns!

 Written by Jim Flint, President & Founder

Facebook has aggressively updated and enhanced their advertising experience.  It’s no surprise that other social media outlets have updated their advertising methods as well. Twitter recently released Twitter for Business, an easy way to promote tweets and profiles to targeted interest groups in certain geographical areas, similar to Facebook’s Power Editor.

While not as in depth as Facebook’s targeting methods, Twitter’s new advertising and promotion tool allows you to not only target certain groups, but also know the size of your audience.  This means you can edit and tailor your campaign to make sure you’re reaching the amount of people you want/need.

Another benefit to advertising with Twitter is the ability to maintain your budget. Twitter charges you in a similar way that Google charges for paid search.  So instead of having your tweet being promoted all day and ending up with a hefty bill, Twitter allows you to set a price cap. The same goes for promoting your account as well.

Every social medium is now getting in the game of targeted ads.  Don’t let the competition out promote and out sell your dealership.  Be visible and keep your automotive digital marketing relevant in the ever-changing world of social media.  Stay tuned for case studies on how Twitter’s advertising affects the automotive industry.

 Written by Kathleen Perley, Vice President of Marketing & Business Development

Local Search Group’s Social Media Team headed to Austin, Texas Wednesday to catch up on Facebook’s latest advancement.  As discussed in our previous blog post, Facebook’s Power Editor has enable their ads to target specific buyers in certain geographical areas. Jim Flint did his webinar over the feature, live, from Facebook’s Austin offices.

While our team was at Facebook, they learned benefits to Power Editor and how to maximize their ads for our clients.  The ads or “unpublished posts” can be utilized best when promoting incentives such as a deal on an oil change or a monthly sales special. They’re also useful in encouraging mobile app downloads.

Not only did the team learn about the technology of Facebook, they got to get a sense of the company culture as well. “They put a lot of trust in their employees,” says Tarrah Miller, Content Creation Specialist. “There’s no set nine to five, it’s just, ‘get your work done’.”

The group also enjoyed a fine lunch at their offices.  All staff members get free breakfast, lunch and dinner! Plus there are two fully stocked bars as well.  With those perks, it makes you never want to leave.

Their trip not only uncovered the latest in Facebook’s Power Editor, but also the latest in where Facebook is going. “This is the golden age of social media,” says Ben First, Social Media Specialist. Stay tuned for our upcoming blogs monitoring the social media giant as they change the world of automotive digital marketing.

 Written by Jim Flint, President & Founder

Selecting a vendor can be tough, especially with all the moving parts that make up automotive digital marketing.  At Local Search Group, we pride ourselves in being the non-vendor vender and keeping in the fashion, we’ve provided an overview of the questions you should always ask your vendor.

A few questions you should be asking your vendor regarding digital marketing focus on three areas: display, search engine marketing (SEM) and mobile apps.

For display, how does your vendor charge? Certain agencies charge based on cost-per-click or cost-per-thousand-impressions and depending on what your overall goal is, one may work better than the other.

Search engine marketing is powered predominately by Google so if the pay-per-click team that will be working with you isn’t Google Adwords certified, they might not take the time to hammer out a successful PPC campaign for you. Taking the time to get Adwords certified shows not only a willingness to learn more about the search engine giant but also their passion for being the best at PPC.

Mobile apps are a great extension of your website and push notifications can be a great asset to reach your customers.  How does your vendor deal with push notifications? Who sends them?

The pride a dealership takes in its showroom and lot should also be echoed in their digital marketing.  Checking your dealership’s website weekly to make sure specials are up-to-date, that your used models have lot photos instead of stock images and that your social media is alive and active should be a habit.  Learn more about our services here.

 Written by Kathleen Perley, Vice President of Marketing & Business Development

Local Search Group’s Jim Flint along side PCG Consulting’s Brian Pasch will lead their webinar, Facebook Changes and Enhanced Campaigns, May 1, 2013 at 1 p.m. EST.  Their webinar is a lead up to Automotive Boot Camp, May 14 – 16 in Philadelphia.

To learn about improving your dealership’s automotive digital marketing and Facebook’s updates, register for the webinar today!